


The Historian

by Derek_the_Dalek



Series: All Hail The Mand'alor [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mythosaur biology, Planet Mandalore (Star Wars), mentions of animal death, mentions of animal dying, semi-sentient darksaber????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derek_the_Dalek/pseuds/Derek_the_Dalek
Summary: Her daughter would be the best Mand'alor wrangling Mythosaur ever, she would make sure of it.POV Mythosaur :D
Series: All Hail The Mand'alor [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131323
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	The Historian

**Author's Note:**

> I am taking sooooo many liberties with Mandalorian history, mythosaur biology, and Mandalor geogreaphy, full disclaimer, i have no idea about the history of Mandalore other than what Ive read in fic and what lil was mentioned in the show so ive made stuff up lol
> 
> I have never in MY LIFE written so many fic in such a short period of time, like teh last time i wrote a fic before this mandalorian rabbit hole i find myself in was maybe three years ago????? what the heck is this show and how it it so inspiring
> 
> I genuinely am Legit real proud of this lol

NineStripe was not yet twenty-five rotations old when her mother died.

She was barely out of infancy when the Enemy arrived. Great ships appeared suddenly in the sky, more and more appearing before them. They all hung silent for a moment, NineStripe frozen behind the bulk of her mother’s leg.

Then came the lights.

NineStripe had never seen anything like it! Red and green and blue flashes streaked down from the sky, exploding the sands, and shaking the ground. Her mother stood tall and let out a cry so loud that if NineStripe was eight hundred hundred steps away, she still would have heard.

 _‘Hide’_ it said, that terrible call, _‘Hidehide **hide** ’_

NineStripe heeded her mother, and hid.

She dug with claws not made for digging, kicked with feet not made for kicking. She drove herself deep into the sands, and, when she felt like she was deep enough, she stilled her heaving sides, stilled her trembling self. She waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Above her, around her, she could feel the shudder of the lights making impact, the thunder of steps, of the Armoured Ones running and fighting the Enemy. She could feel her mother, fighting the Enemy. They would win! But she waited still.

And waited.

NineStripe waited three cycles of the Sister Suns rising and falling after she felt the last impact from the Enemy lights before she moved. Her muscles ached, but she pushed to the surface. They sky was smoky and burnt red but it was empty!

There were no more Enemies! But.

Where was her mother?

NineStripe had never been alone before! She cried into the hazy air of the sand flats, eyes stinging in the acrid smoke. She ran in the direction of the Keep, already feeling the den she shared with her mother was empty. She had been presented to her mother’s Kept Armoured One, the one known as the Mand’alor, only once before when she was still _wetstickywarm_ from hatching, and that was in her mother’s den, but she knew where the den of the Armoured Ones was.

NineStripe was not even half-way to the Keep when she found her mother.

She was on her side, partially buried in the sands, tusk broken, the visible skin black and burnt and leaking. She was groaning, like one of the great trees when bent in the wind. She was breathing, but it sounded stuck, and barely inflated her chest. NineStripe sat by her head, chucking reassurance and pleas in equal measure. NineStripes counted her mother’s breaths, eight and eight and eight. She died before one cycle was complete.

NineStripe did not stay with the body of her mother for long. The beskar in her bones, borrowed to her at the time of her hatch, belonged to the sands, and was now returning. The same thing would happen to NineStripe one day.

NineStripe was alone, but by Creed, the Kept was of the same blood as her mother and therefore of NineStripe herself. They would know what to do! She set out at a ground eating run, stepping and stepping and stepping, toward the Keep.

NineStripe had never been Inside before. In caverns and caves yes, but they were created by the will of the planet, and not the will of Man. She crept inside slowly, nose burning with in the murky air. The halls of the Keep where narrow and scorched. There were bodies of Armoured Ones and Enemy White Armours, all around. Where were the survivors? NineStripe went into every room she could fit into and found only dead or soon dead.

One Armoured One grabbed her tusk when she bent to sniff him, and she jumped! His other arm was missing, and he was bleeding heavily. His Armoured Head was gone, and he had a soft face with big blue eyes that were looking at her. He was keening, a high sound of Hurt and Scared. NineStripes had herself made those noises when she had found her mother. She sat with him, his arm wrapped around her neck, and chirped noises of nonsense and comfort. He died slowly. But not alone.

He was not the only Armoured One who died with her that day. She watched four other Armoured Ones return to the sands in the same way as the first one.

She learned that many Armoured Ones left when the Enemy came, ran with the Foundlings and all those that were left behind were dying or dead.

The Mand’alor, her mother’s Kept, was already dead.

NineStripe was Alone.

Her clutch mates, her two brothers, had already left the den some rotations ago. Males of Mythosaur hatched first and grew faster than females. By the time NineStripes hatched, her brothers were nearly tusked, one and a half a rotation old. They didn’t need as many lessons as NineStripe did; it was the females only that could become Keepers, and only those that could maintain the territory of the Keep. Before she clutched, her mother battled other females for the right to the Keep, but was strong, and always won. The Kept had been present when NineStripe hatched, had tumbled out of her egg to the sound of her mother grumbling, her brothers chucking loudly and to the sight of _shinyshinyshiny_. The Mand’alor had wiped the _stickyeggwarm_ off her face as her mother huffed. They had soft hands, and held her carefully, like she was still in the egg. They had laughed, running a hand down her neck, counting her stripes _._ It was the only time she had met the Kept.

NineStripe was forced to take the lessons her mother had given her and continue teaching herself. Her mother had taught her how hear the sands, but it was NineStripe alone that learned to listen to what they said. Learned how to speak back.

The push and pull of the sand was in part an innate thing. NineStripe never had to worry about stepping wrong when out on the flats, never had to avoid the many hidden pits and caves under the sand, knowing that the sand would rise to meet her feet as they touched the ground. NineStripe hunted fireworms by listening to the whispered _hush-shush-hush_ of the sand, the fireworm scraping through the grains with a many clawed body. The empty space of still sand meant a sleeping sand-shark, an area that should be avoided til she was bigger.

NineStripes could pull the sands upwards, outwards. The beskar in her bones spoke the same language as the beskar in the sand, and they sang together beautifully in her head.

NineStripe grew and learned and hunted and thrived. She stalked the halls of the Keep til she was too big to fit, then she settled in a cavern not far from the Keep, warm from the somewhat sleeping volcano. One day the Armoured Ones would return. And she would see to it that they were Kept.

When she was old enough, she went out into the cool night and bellowed a challenge to the flats.

The first male arrived two cycles later. His territory was along the coast of the Great Ocean, and told stories of leviathans with giant white eyes and teeth that washed up on the rocky shores every few rotations. He was muscular and strong, with bony ridges running down the length of his spine from his brows to the tip of his tail.

NineStripe mated with him, and every male that came after him.

One came from the rainforests that cropped up only in the deepest valleys, where high stone walls forced moisture to fall and collect, creating areas with almost constant rain. He had long tusks close to his face, and his head crest could be raised and lowered at will. His colouration was darker than hers, almost brown, with mottled pale rosettes. ‘ _Like sunlight’_ he said.

The one from the Southern Canyons was pale, and long. The sands there were not as beskar rich as her flats, and as a result, the canyons were less gold in colour and were instead pink and salty. He had no crest at all and was smooth and sleek. He moved like the wind lived in his bones, rather than beskar. NineStripes knew better though. Beskar built the Mythosaur, no matter where they hailed from.

Eleven males altogether came, each with stories and scars and shining eyes.

Traditionally, historically, she would not have mated with every male. They would have battled each other, and then her for the right to mate. There just wasn’t enough of them left for that to happen. If they had survived the Enemy all those years ago, if they had heeded her mother’s call as NineStripe did, then they were strong enough to bear healthy offspring.

NineStripe stored the seed from each male within herself, not yet ready to lay. Laying was a dangerous business, and eggs needed constant protection. Eight and eight rotations NineStripe waited. She was still young, and deep down, afraid. She remembered the Armoured One she had watched die, remembered his blue eyes, wide and wet. He would have died alone without her. She would die alone without a clutch. Her bloodline would die with her.

Suddenly she was enraged at herself. She was the Keeper! She held the territory of the Keep! Her blood flowed through the veins of the Mand’alor, wherever they may be! When they returned, _and they would return,_ they would be Kept, and she would be the Keeper! This was the Way of her mother, and her mother’s mother and all the mothers back and back and back! This was the Way!

NineStripe prepared for clutching with single minded ferocity. She hunted and bulked and hunted some more. She prepped her cavern, pushing the sands into deep circles, leaving imprints. The underground volcano cavern of the Keep, full of molten material, maintained the sands at the perfect temperature. 

NineStripe laid three eggs, huge and fragile and beautiful. Two males and a female. As always.

She watched for two full rotations, never leaving the cavern, now the den, for her sons to hatch. They emerged from the _wetstickywarm_ within a cycle of each other. Both had ridges like the Coast male, and one had pale rosettes like the Rainforest male. They were magnificent.

They learned the history of the Mythosaur, the history of the Armoured Ones and of the Enemy. They listened and learned, curled around the un-hatched egg of their sister. She was never the Keeper, but she kept the histories, because she didn't have anything else. They heard the _hush-shush-hush_ of a fireworm that strayed too close to the cavern, slipping though the sands. She fed them from food stored in her crop. They grew quickly.

By the time her daughter was hatching, her sons were fierce. Their tusks were nearly fully formed, and they butted heads often, mock battles playing across the entire space of the cavern. One such battle was interrupted by NineStripe’s daughter erupting from the egg like the volcano that incubated her. She bared her teeth, ferocious in her gooey blindness, and NineStripes mourned the lack of soft hands that would clear her daughter’s face, and could cradle her dearly. She mourned for the Armoured Ones, and for the history of a people her children would know only though her.

Her children grew swiftly and proudly. They played together, and NineStripe could see some of the Canyon male’s swiftness in her daughter, as she ducked around her taller brothers, and their snapping jaws and clanking tusks. They learned to listen and to speak. To hunt. To hide.

Her sons left together when they were twenty rotations. They would stay together for some rotations more, watching each other til they were strong enough to establish their own territories or formidable enough to push someone else out of theirs. She would not see them again.

Her daughter learned the way of the Keeper, of the Keep and, most importantly, of the Kept. She learned histories that had been passed down from mother to daughter from the time the sands first spoke, and they first listened. She learned to push and to pull the sands. To feel the push and pull of the sands inside her. She learned and listened and grew. NineStripes would never be a Keeper, but she would do everything in her power to make sure her daughter was ready to be one.

Her daughter was nearly forty rotations when the Armoured ones returned. NineStripe twisted her neck and watched the ship land where shallow sand covered solid rock, far from the Keep. She could not stop herself bleating into the sky, they had returned! She could hear the whisper of the Mand’alor Darksaber! Her daughter felt her excitement, tail whipping as she wound herself around NineStripe’s legs.

_‘If they are worthy, they will hear my call in their bones. They are Armoured Ones, but they must be worthy!’_

NineStripe’s daughter went back into their cavern den to wait, and NineStripes followed the whisper of the Darksaber to the caverns under the Keep, and began whispering herself. If it were truly the Mand’alor, if they were worthy of the Darksaber, and of the planet, they would be worthy of being Kept by her daughter.

Eight and eight and eight cycles later, NineStripe felt the shift of sand around footsteps, heard the whisper of the Darksaber, and saw, with her own two eyes, a living breathing _shining_ Mand’alor. The sands brought his name with them from the Keep, and she bugled it triumphantly. The sands shifted around her, and the planet responded to her call. For the first time ever, the beskar in her bones was answered not by the beskar in the sand, but in the beskar of the Mand’alor, in a song that could be heard by all.

“ _Din Djarin!”_

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I have so many thoughts on Mythosaur biology, like....what the fuck are the tusks acc for???? they seem so inconveniently placed?  
> 2\. I'm deffo gonna do a break down of Mandalore biomes and stuff one day  
> 3\. I didn't know how to make it obvious in teh fic, so its hinted at best, but my Mythosaurs have a magnetic sense, whic allows them to use the beskar laden sands to hunt (almost like ecolocation or toph in atla) and manipulate their environments somewhat soooo 'the sands speak'  
> 4\. Like i said the last time, the bond between Mythosaur and Mand'alore is hand-wavy magical so  
> 5\. If anywhere i've said NineStripes instead of NineStripe pls ignore, i chnaged my min lke three times lol
> 
> Anyway i love u come shout at me on tumblr [X](https://cry-your-own-goddamn-river.tumblr.com/)


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